Background:
During this local election season, check back every Wednesday for a new question-and-answer with your two candidates for Town Moderator – Leigh Martinson and Robert Peterson Jr. Both men square off on Saturday, April 25 to replace longtime retiring Town Moderator Jim Stewart for a 3-year term.
Responses are in the candidates’ own words, unedited. Each candidate was given the same amount of time (approximately one week) to answer the question. Order of answers will alternate each week.
This Week’s Question:
Why would like to become the next Town Moderator? Why do you feel you’re qualified for the position?
Leigh Martinson’s Answer:
I want to be Wilmington’s next Moderator for three reasons. First, I want to provide order within the Town Meeting so that the town can conduct its business in an efficient manner. Second, I want to continue to offer long term stability in that position, which the Town has enjoyed for the past four decades. Third, I want to ensure the Town continues to enjoy its strong fiscal position by appointing qualified people to the Finance Committee.
Our community faces continuing disruption at nearly every Town Meeting, Selectmen’s Meeting and Finance Committee Meeting. These one or two disruptive citizens should not hold the rest of us hostage by abusing both the letter and the spirit of the rules. If history is our guide, the challenge is real and remains today. Order must exist, so the Town may conduct its business efficiently. I will continue the tradition of those before me and ensure order is maintained, while applying the rules fairly and objectively to everyone, without bias or prejudice.
For more than forty years now, our town has known two Moderators: Mr. Stewart and Mr. Caira. My hope is that the good people of our community will allow me to continue in both of their footsteps and serve in the Moderator’s roll for the next 20 years or more. I have no aspirations of any political office beyond that of Moderator. Given my work and family commitments, I have absolutely no interest in pursuing any other local or state elective office. If I am elected, serving as the Town Moderator will be the one and only office that I seek.
An often overlooked roll of the Moderator is to work with the chairman of the Board of Selectmen and the chairman of the Finance Committee to appoint new members to the Finance Committee as vacancies arise. The Finance Committee is important to our Town’s fiscal welfare. Without its leadership, important initiatives like the new High School would not be possible.
Building and sustaining my own law practice within one of the largest firms in the United States has taught me how to recognize candidates who can not only deliver quality work product but do so within a budgeted financial framework. These are the same qualities that our current Finance Committee members possess, and what we will need going forward. On a daily basis, I work with CEO’s and CFO’s of numerous Fortune 500 companies. I know how to manage a team to a budget. Furthermore, my independence from political influence ensures I can remain impartial when called upon to vet candidates for the two Finance Committee seats that are currently vacant, and for the three other positions that will expire upon the completion of this year’s Annual Town Meeting.
My qualifications to serve as Moderator are numerous. Most relevant is that I have spent ten of my fifteen years in the legal profession working in and around the courtroom. In the past three years alone, I have tried complex jury trials in three different Federal Courts. This considerable trial experience has honed my ability to think on my feet, react to difficult testimony, and learn how to control a witness using the rules of procedure. I will translate these experiences into leading an efficient and effective Town Meeting. The rules exist for a reason. I know how to enforce them, and as Town Moderator, I will uphold the letter and the spirit of the rules with impartiality. I will employ every aspect of the procedural rules to keep the debate focused, cordial, and efficient.
Thank you for your consideration,
Leigh John Martinson
Robert Peterson Jr.’s Answer:
I have called Wilmington “home” for my entire life. Over the past 28 years I have never called another place home, nor have I wanted to. Wilmington is my home, and forever will be. I want to become the next Wilmington Town Moderator so that I can foster community involvement for a younger generation of Wilmington residents.
Community service is not a new concept to my family. We have served the Wilmington community for over fifty years. I am running for Town Moderator because our younger generation is ready, willing and able to serve. Since my graduation from law school, I purchased a home in Wilmington and have made it a point to invest myself in the Wilmington community, as previous generations of my family have done. I am a member of the Wilmington Rotary Club, WCTV Board of Directors, Vice Chairman of the Wilmington Town Democratic Committee and I am the sole Wilmington representative on the Burbank YMCA Board of Advisors. In addition to those clubs and boards, I served on the Wilmington Public Schools Superintendent Search Committee last spring, and I coach in the Wilmington Youth Hockey Association. As you can see, I am already an active member of the Wilmington Community, and through my position as Town Moderator I hope to further my community involvement and service.
Having been to town meetings in the past, I quickly learned what it takes to be a successful Town Moderator, and how that position is vital to Town Meeting and the operation of our Town Government. Overall, I have come to learn that an exemplary Town Moderator is respectful, knowledgeable, fair, and attentive, yet assertive and able to retain control of the body over which they preside. Wilmington has seen all of those qualities embodied in our outgoing Town Moderator, Jim Stewart, who presided over Wilmington Town Meeting for the past twenty-five years. I am running to succeed Mr. Stewart because I believe I embody the aforementioned qualities, and I am the candidate who can best represent the townspeople of Wilmington. I was raised in Wilmington, I live in Wilmington, I work in Wilmington, and in my spare time I dedicate myself to various organizations in and about Wilmington. Whether I win or lose this election, I will continue to be a fixture in the Wilmington community.
When I think of why I am most qualified to serve as Wilmington’s next Town Moderator, I often find myself thinking of the most important “qualification” one needs to have in order to be a successful Town Moderator: they must be willing and able to foster and maintain an environment of constructive conversation about the pertinent issues. I am the candidate who can best achieve that environment. The goal of any Town Moderator cannot be the desire to silence dissenting voices. The goal of the Town Moderator should be the desire to keep conversation germane to the issues and ensure constructive debate on those issues, all while maintaining active voter involvement and respect amongst all attendees. Every member has the right to be heard, so long as they act within the rules of the forum and showcase the utmost respect for other members, even if they have differing opinions. I possess the knowledge, skill and personality to ensure Wilmington maintains a Town Meeting environment whereas voters can come and voice their opinions, within the rules of order, in an effort to best shape the policies for our town.
Thank you for your attention to this material, and in closing I respectfully ask for your vote on April 25, 2015.
Wilmington Apple 